Forgiven's Not Forgotten
by Cold Fire Phoenix
Summary: Home is, so it is said, where the heart is. Yet what happens when home disappears? When everything is changing, including yourself, how can you keep up and not lose your mind? -- Inuyasha x Kagome
1. Disclaimer and More

Now, what I truly love is the attempt at ignorance I can turn this DISCLAIMER into. Why, and how? Easily, if you care to know. Yet still do many not seem to understand. Inuyasha, with whatever spelling and title attached to the end, belongs to the one who created the series, Ms. Rumiko Takahashi. Not me. Never me. Comprende? Intiende?  
  
Good.  
  
Now, as a bit of a warning for the actual story. . . Everything is in first person. If you no like, feel free to tell me but I would have to wonder why you'd read it in the first place. The entire plot occurs right after Inuyasha finds out that Kikyou has faced off with Naraku at the BIG, HOLY- UNHOLY MOUNTAIN in true/Rumiko's storyline. Proceed from there, and you might be less confused. I know the story is a bit fast paced, but there is a purpose. You agree? Nyah.  
  
Anywho, Red Liger is on guard duty, and let's just see you try to make him blush, now. . . . He-he-he.  
  
RL: What is on YOUR mind? No one ever really considered you INNOCENT did they?  
  
CFP: Yep! They still do! HahahahahahahahahahahahaHAhahahahahahahahHAhahahahhaahahahahahahack..Hairbal l.  
  
RL: Maybe, morbid?  
  
CFP: That too!  
  
Icchan: ICCHAN GO-  
  
RL&CFP: BOOM. We know, we KNOW already.  
  
Icchan: You know, it is HARD to think of an original entrance these days.  
  
CFP: And you don't think skydiving in is a little used?  
  
Icchan: Is it? I thought I was being-  
  
RL: PLEASE, SAVE YOURSELF AND GO READ! NYAH! 


	2. Begin Sweet Misery

Forgiven's Not Forgotten-Begin Sweet Misery  
  
Life has never been fair, had never been predictable. Familiar things can change in an instant, leaving behind a chaotic mess that we somehow must find a way to cope with.  
  
Even if that chaos stretched across the very fabric of time.  
  
I know, I know, I'm a bit on the dramatic side. Even so, there's no way of simplifying what has happened to me in my short lived time on earth: There will be no way of simplifying my future. I wasn't kidding about that chaos thing.  
  
Nor was I stretching the limits of truth and credibility with its reach.  
  
I guess I'm feeling a bit reflective; there is not any other reason that would satisfy the turn my mind has taken. By now, I should be used to everything; nothing should surprise me. Yet everything still does.  
  
It hasn't quite been a half of a year since I arrived here, in the past. Nippon's past, but on the flip side of the coin, my future.  
  
Boy am I confused.  
  
Part of that confusion might stem from the fact that we-Inuyasha, Kouga, Miroku, Sango, Shippou, and I-just narrowly escaped death. Again.  
  
Talk about your stressful day.  
  
Then again, part of this confusion could be due to my emotional state, but that hasn't been all that great since I first arrived here.  
  
Mostly, I blame Inuyasha. Well, maybe not blame him, but he certainly has caused his portion of mischief in my mind.  
  
Which brings me back to the present. Speaking of the devil, the hanyou has just left a moment or two ago, and I know for whom he leaves. After all, there's only one time I ever see that particular mixture of longing, sadness, and resignation on his face.  
  
That expression is solely reserved for Kikyou.  
  
So now I'm justifiably mad. No, not at Inuyasha's antics-those I can understand-but rather at his lack of forethought. Sure, the partial youkai can run like the devil and make flying jumps that would drive one of those silly hopping mammals on Australia to shame-but that's just him. The rest of us plain, ordinary mortals have to make due with average walking, running, and side aches.  
  
Now do I dare wonder why the path ahead looks so dreary? "We'd better find him." I am not going to even try to imagine what had him so upset.  
  
I can hear Kouga pacing behind me. Inuyasha having saved him had caused a general uproar in the full youkai-after all, his true love (me) didn't send the hanyou to fetch him. I suppose that Kouga will soon be racing off to join Inuyasha, in the somewhat vain hope that Naraku would be at the end of the trail.  
  
Miroku and Sango both fell in step with me, Shippou clutching the monk's robe for all his worth. Kouga took off at a flat out run, kindly kicking dirt up in our faces.  
  
The youkai was nice, but he could sure be inconsiderate.  
  
The same could be said of Inuyasha.  
  
My thoughts momentarily divert as I feel like I've just been sucker- punched. What's happening to me? My chest is constricting; my eyes are beginning to distort what the see. A cold stone settles in my belly, an absurd contrast to the sudden, all consuming heat I'm feeling.  
  
There is no way this could be a good sign.  
  
I'm dimly aware that I am stumbling; I can't seem to gather my thoughts or turn my wishes into actions. Something hurts my ears, loud and heart- wrenching. I guess that I'm screaming, but I can't tell for sure.  
  
I can make out Shippou in my currently pain-filled and muddled state. He looks concerned, or rather panicked; my thoughts turn briefly elsewhere between one surge of mind-consuming pain and the next. I wonder what has happened to Kikyou.  
  
Darkness overtakes me as friendly hands grasp my shoulders in concern.  
  
When I awake, I am faintly aware of a prickling sensation on the edges of my perception. Thousands of tiny, unseen needles strike my skin as my mind returns to consciousness bit by bit.  
  
I burn still, but now from the heat of a well-kept fire rather than some unknown, unforeseen attack on my body. My throat is dry, but I have barely risen my head from whatever it lay resting on before a gourd was offered.  
  
I accept, thanking Miroku with pained eyes.  
  
Sango is on guard, a slight sigh of relief escaping her lips when she spots me leaning on my elbow. She is about to speak, but a blur of auburn fur quickly claims my attention and my reassurances.  
  
I manage to retain the gourd in my hand as the hysterical kitsune youkai sobs into my shirt, tiny hands twisting the material as if the kitsune sought entrance to my body. I stroke his head, murmuring relentlessly over and over again. "Shush, Shippou, I'm okay, I'm okay, shh, everything's alright. . ."  
  
I can't help but wonder if everything really is. For the first time, it registers that there is no sign of Inuyasha, or Kouga for that matter.  
  
"He hasn't come back yet, Kagome-san." Miroku looks troubled, but I can offer no comfort nor can I receive any.  
  
More than anything, I am curious. "What. . .Happened?" My voice sounds old, so cracked and broken as to lie in pieces upon the ground.  
  
Sango answered, eyes locking with mine. "We don't know. You collapsed, and passed out."  
  
I can't be sure that the exterminator is telling me the entire truth, but my head nods anyway. I have no better an idea myself-  
  
Yet I might, I discover, not liking what I find. Could something have happened to Kikyou. . .?  
  
I realize that no one currently in my company would know the answer. Perhaps the only one who could answer was-  
  
Inuyasha. The hanyou was also the one person whom I most wanted to see and hear from right now.  
  
For personal reasons.  
  
At the moment, I feel a bout of lethargy approaching; I am not helped by the sudden onset of chills so backward from my earlier overheating. Eyelids feeling heavy, I try to spot my burlap bag, praying that either Miroku or Sango had found the thing.  
  
The bag was sitting next to a tree by Miroku's back. I smile, and attempt to stand to go to my possessions, but Miroku stops me as my own knees weaken.  
  
"I will bring that to you, Kagome-san." I feel guilty and relieved at the same time.  
  
The priest returns soon, bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder, items dangerously close to falling out. I cannot bring myself to care-what I needed most was further inside the backpack.  
  
Smiling my gratitude, feeling like the little energy I had should not be wasted on the effort of menial speech, I clumsily set to work. Eventually, my seeking fingers alight on the single most precious thing I have in my bag-a bottle of pain relievers. I dry swallow two of them, trying not to gag, Miroku and Sango eyeing me warily the entire time. Their lack of questions was either a testimony to how bad I looked right now, or to how on edge they were.  
  
I am tempted to opt for the latter.  
  
With a painful sigh, I lay myself back down. Today has been one long roller-coaster ride, and I need sleep more than anything else at the moment. I feel Shippou curl up next to me, for once sleeping within the confines of the sleeping bag. This moves me, but even more so do I appreciate his small body heat.  
  
When did I start to feel this cold?  
  
I give in to my body's urge for rest, shutting out everything I can for the time being. My mouth opens wide in a yawn I don't bother to conceal, and my mind starts to lose its hold on reality. My lips are moving of their own free will, and I hear myself speak the name of the one man whom I hold most dear in this world and the next. "Inuyasha. . ."  
  
The morning dawns bright and lovely, setting the small birds of the forest into cheerful chattering. My own spirit rises as I put behind me the stresses of the day before. Life was not worth living if it was merely a shadow of the past. Kikyou has unwittingly taught me this.  
  
I whistle, a habit I rarely find myself indulging in, and almost sing out my hellos to the relieved looking Miroku and Sango. Funny, how their names stick together like that. Funny, how I am now wondering if the same can ever be said of Inuyasha and me, without Kikyou somehow intruding.  
  
Though the reality was that I, the reincarnation of a miko born and raised to fight over seventy years ago, was the intruder.  
  
Yet I understand her pain, her anger at being torn from a rest she wanted so desperately. I know of Inuyasha's continued loyalty to the woman who had killed him, though he had never gone against her in a rage or any other state. Even this, I can understand. What I can't understand is Inuyasha's continued absence.  
  
Somehow I know nothing has happened to him; in fact, I am more than willing to bet on that. However, I am worried about what the cause of his disappearance might be.  
  
What's that? There's some movement in the trees-but it is only one of the birds. For a moment, my heart was been in my throat, but it was all a false hope. I smile, determined to enjoy the sunny day and not worry over my hanyou.  
  
Did I just say that? Well, yes, but none of the others have turned and given me knowing looks, so I didn't speak out loud. I sense Shippou coming, his small paws kicking up tufts of dust as he approaches me.  
  
"Kagome?" His voice is timid, as if he believes himself to be walking on eggshells.  
  
Shippou's sensitivity has never ceased to amaze me. "Yes, Shippou-chan?" I know I'm smiling-I can see it in his bright eyes.  
  
"Daijoubu?"  
  
"Hai," I reply, my voice attempting to comfort the little kitsune, "Hai, Shippou, daijoubu."  
  
The kitsune's face breaks into a wide grin of undiluted pleasure. He leaps into my arms, forcing me to catch him as he calls out my name. "Kagome!"  
  
Amusement floods through me. "Shippou-chan." The child youkai is rubbing his eyes, desperate to say something but unable to find words.  
  
"You're okay! I was so scared, and you were so cold, and you were hurt but we couldn't find anything on you, and Miroku said-"  
  
"Shippou, what do you mean 'we' couldn't find anything on me?"  
  
"Well, I mean Miroku and me." His puzzled eyes looked in my own, noticing my flustered appearance.  
  
"Miroku?" I finally manage to choke out, sounding odd to my own ears.  
  
Shippou finally understood what I was asking, and frantically waved his little hands in my face. "No! Wait-Yeah! But, but not like that! Sango wouldn't have let-"  
  
From what the little kitsune was saying, I coming to understand that Sango had been watching over me when Miroku had tended my unconscious form. Small comfort. "Hai, Shippou. With Sango there, I have no worries concerning the houshi." My smile is now reassuring, for the young one in my arms.  
  
He hugs me; I hug him back. For a moment, my comfort is his comfort, and the kitsune and I are in a world without shadows.  
  
I must remember to thank reality for intruding. Of course I wouldn't want to stay that way; Reality was always so much more pleasant.  
  
Stop the sarcasm, Kagome.  
  
I'm not acting like my normal self-If there actually is such a thing.  
  
Miroku, as if sensing that Shippou and I had just spoken of him, appears at my side, grinning. I am smiling in return, but I know he doesn't see my smile reach my eyes.  
  
"Today dawned lovely, Kagome-san. It is made all the more lovely with your presence." The houshi grins suggestively.  
  
Was the houshi expecting me to blush? He should know better. I have been traveling with him for quite some time, now. Or maybe. . . Just maybe he was searching for some sort of reassurance in his own way, much like Shippou had done. "Such eloquent words for you, Miroku."  
  
His head cocked in query. "Arigatougouzaimasu, Kagome-san."  
  
English. I must have just used an English word. My English teacher would be so happy right about now. . .  
  
"Where are Sango and Kirara?"  
  
Miroku meets my eyes, his smile softening as he does so. "Checking the perimeter, Kagome-san."  
  
If he doesn't stop adding my name to the end of his every sentence, I'm going to go off the deep end. "I see." I can also guess what for, but to mention my suspicions wouldn't be for the best right now. A thought strikes me, and I feel myself grimace unwittingly. Why didn't we use Kirara to catch up with Inuyasha yesterday? Indeed, I am wondering why.  
  
"She's also going to try and find Inuyasha, or at least check to make sure he's not back at Mount Hakurei, looking for us. We did move rather out of the way with the onset of your . . . Affliction."  
  
He was dancing around yesterday's events, and I couldn't care less. "He's an inu youkai, Miroku. Even if he can't see us, he can smell us."  
  
The houshi stills smiles, though now I can tell how sad he is. "Kagome- san, don't worry about Inuyasha. I'm sure-"  
  
I know what Miroku is attempting to say, so I stop him with a hand on his shoulder. "He's fine, Miroku. Inuyasha's a big-boy now." I bow my head, still holding Shippou to my chest with one arm, leaning toward the houshi. "Thanks for trying, Miroku."  
  
His hand covers mine, and I know with unflattering certainty that he is smiling. Sadly. For me.  
  
I pick up my head, reassuring my friend with the slightest hint of a smile on my lips. Shippou twists his hands in my shirt, worried and happy at the same time. I lift my hand off Miroku's shoulder, slipping away from his own hand. I pat Shippou's head once more, gently prying him away. "I can't sense Naraku in the area."  
  
The houshi almost looks surprised, but the emotion flickered only briefly across his face. He looks beyond me, toward the approaching Sango and Kirara.  
  
I knew. I had sensed their Ki long before.  
  
"Konnichi wa, Sango!" Miroku calls out, myself holding freed hands over my head, shielding my eyes from the early morning sun. Shippou has claimed Miroku as his new perch, and waves a greeting from the houshi's shoulder.  
  
"Konnichi wa, houshi. Kagome!" Sango's eyes brighten, eliciting a smile from me in response.  
  
"Ohayo, Sango." I don't dare ask how her search went-she would have told us if she'd found anything drastic by now.  
  
My eyes are following Kirara as the youkai lands gracefully, in some ways reminiscent of my own feline Buyo at home. Sango is sliding off of Kirara's back, her Hiraikotsu secured to her own. She was, as I had already observed, dressed in her battle gear.  
  
"Find anything?"  
  
Sango was shaking her head before pausing. "Nothing living, or dead for that matter. I did sight a rather large burn-mark in a clearing that was located in the general direction Inuyasha and Kouga took off in. That was all."  
  
No blood, no bones, no Shikon no Kakera. . . Nothing. Then why do I have such a sinking feeling? "Are you sure that was all, Sango?"  
  
She looks at me with the barest hint of sadness in her eyes, motioning helplessly with her hands. "Hai, Kagome."  
  
I sigh in defeat, worry overtaking me while I try to fight it off. I am not altogether successful, but I have managed to stave off the hungry wolves of my mind. My legs are feeling weak, though I find Miroku's steadying arm supporting me before I fall to the hard ground. "Gomen, Miroku."  
  
"Don't be sorry, Kagome-san." His voice was not doing much in the way of soothing my nerves.  
  
"I hate being weak, Miroku. Especially now." My eyes are beginning to cloud up, but I force myself to hold back the tears aching to escape.  
  
Sango approaches; I can hear her footsteps with uncanny clarity. Her voice catches when she places her hand upon my shoulder. "Gomen nasai, Kagome. Inuyasha just wasn't there."  
  
I break free of their hands, whirling around and marching off to some distant point. I don't care where, as long as it's away from their pitying voices! Pity is not something I need, especially when I know Inuyasha isn't dead.  
  
No, the pain that had debilitated me the afternoon before was from something, or someone, entirely different.  
  
Yet entirely related.  
  
My mind is slowing as my body brings it down from its mad dash toward nowhere. I can note with small amusement that I have made some ten feet of progress, and already I ache like the dickens. My shoulder leans into the hard, unforgiving bark of a tree that has most likely seen more years than the rest of us.  
  
I know Miroku and Sango are looking at me; their eyes all but burn into my backside. Shippou appears at my feet, sad eyes seeking my own. I stretch my arms out invitingly, and the little kitsune wastes no time. Soon, I am holding the quivering child in my arms once more.  
  
How I wish he were Inuyasha. . . 


	3. Twisted Pathways of the Soul

Forgiven's Not Forgotten-Twisted Pathways of the Soul  
  
The day is passing in a haze; we have decided to head westward, as Naraku has seemed to have done. The others refuse to let me do anything, saying they don't wish to provoke me into another sudden attack. They know I see right through their fabrication, but I let it be. If they needed that small act of compliancy, then I was going to give it to them.  
  
I am on Kirara's back, the transformed youkai walking alongside her master and Miroku. Shippou sits in front of me, currently resting. I suppose that the time is a bit past noon: Our shadows are faintly visible behind us.  
  
Nothing eventful has happened; as of yet we haven't even stopped to eat. I can feel my stomach growling, urging me to fill the empty pit. Sango must have heard one of the rumbles I emitted, for she decides to stop.  
  
"We need to eat while we can. Who knows when we'll run into Naraku or one of his lesser youkai."  
  
Miroku was beginning to pick up on Sango's road of thought, and he began to nod in agreement. "We will need all of our strength."  
  
I can sense they are trying to tell me something, but they sure weren't being a subtle as they believed. I have learned how to feign defeat, however, and allow them their small victory. I nudge the kitsune child, who curls all the closer to me. I cannot help but smile at this innocent reaction, but I know he will need to eat as well. Good thing that he isn't as grumpy when he gets up as most human children.  
  
Very odd, how I now think on such terms. For many in my time, there are only human children. There are no monsters in the closets, or underneath the beds. Or anywhere, for that matter. "Shippou-chan, we're stopping to eat."  
  
He mumbles something I don't hear, so I carefully lift him in my arms and join Sango and Miroku by my bag.  
  
I have been finding Miroku rather amusing as he has been trudging along with the 'inexcusably large' burlap bag. I do believe he has a bit more respect for my sheer strength of will to carry that thing wherever I go.  
  
Sango pulls out a string of fish from my bag, causing me to fall into a state of utter amazement. How did that get in there? By way of explanation, Sango gestures toward Miroku.  
  
"Well, we, err, I decided that the fishing in the creek near where we camped last night was too good to pass up, and I got a little carried away- " he motions to the string of fish, "And I decided that 'to waste not is to want not' so I had placed them in your bag for future use."  
  
Several questions were presenting themselves in my mind after this short speech. How did he fish? Did he just borrow one of those Americanized expressions from me? What does my stuff smell like now? I am sure I don't want to know the answer to any of them, so I remain silent. For a time.  
  
The expectant looks the two people were giving me finally provoked me into a response. "Don't worry about it." My lips form a smile, and their looks of joy at my words send me into laughter. As the sound reberates through my chest, a sleepy kitsune opens his bleary eyes.  
  
"Wasso funny?" Tiny hands rubbed sleep from big eyes filling with curiosity.  
  
I can't help but smile radiantly at the little youkai. "You," I say playfully. Shippou doesn't believe me for a second.  
  
Turning his head, the kitsune lets out a yip of excitement at the site of the fish. He leaps from my arms to Sango's back, eyeing the tasty morsels with longing.  
  
I decide to volunteer to search for firewood.  
  
Miroku decides to come along.  
  
The trees present their prim trunks to us as we walk, pleading that we stop and listen as the wind stirs their leaves in a gentle harmony.  
  
I pause, feeling the gentle caress of the wind's tendrils through my long hair. It is good to be alive. I believe the forest surrounding me is saying much the same.  
  
Miroku politely taps my shoulder; I turn with a guilty expression on my face. His precarious hold on the bundle of stick he is carrying makes me look down at my handful and sigh.  
  
"We should start back, Kagome-san."  
  
"Hai." I glance around the forest once more, breathing deeply. "Hai."  
  
I can hear Shippou now; we are but a hill away from where we stopped. He is pestering Sango, and from what I am hearing, she's having issues with Kirara as well. "We're back!" As I call out, I spot Shippou. He runs to me, wide grin on his face.  
  
"Sugoi! We get to eat soon!" He grabs onto my leg, chattering absently as I continue on to where Miroku has set down his bundle of branches.  
  
Sugoi? Where did he learn that word? Mysteries were building today.  
  
I stop myself, knowing that this train of thought would bring me back to the one thing I needed to ignore for the time being. Of course, that 'thing' being Inuyasha.  
  
It's just so darn hard! Everything seemed. . . Wrong, or at least incomplete when he wasn't around. Sure, I know he can be such a baka, as well as an annoying, egotistical, macho-mannish, proud-It doesn't matter. He's my baka, and for some reason that makes all the difference.  
  
Then again, there was the little matter concerning the word 'my'. I am implying possession, which for Inuyasha I have none. I am quickly learning to hate proper grammar.  
  
I smell something, and it penetrates through my thoughts that Miroku has started to cook the fish. Shippou's twitching nose attests to the same fact, but he is continuing to hold my leg quite firmly. I am resigned once more.  
  
Sitting myself on the ground while avoiding squashing Shippou was an entertaining situation-If you were anyone other than Shippou or me. Thus did Kirara, Miroku, and Sango find a diversion they were only too wiling to poke fun at.  
  
Reminds me of Inuyasha.  
  
Miroku asks me something I don't catch. "Are? Gomen nasai."  
  
He waves off my apology with his hand, grinning. "I asked if you like your fish well done."  
  
Nodding warily, I eye the houshi and his fish-on-sticks.  
  
"Good." I decide Miroku looks way too pleased with himself as he hands me one of the sticks. "Well done for the pretty young miko."  
  
"Hai, Miroku, whatever you say. Arigato." He wasn't kidding when he said well done. I could easily say the fish was darker than Inuyasha's hair in human form.  
  
"Not again!" I cry out before I realize. Everyone is looking at me oddly, and I weakly gesture at the burnt fish, feeling sheepish.  
  
Miroku is giving me a most puzzled look. "Kagome-san, I haven't cooked fish for you before."  
  
"That looks more burnt than cooked, houshi." Sango is pointedly ignoring Miroku, though her comment was heavily based on what he'd just said.  
  
I listen as they launch into a one sided argument, the other side retorting with outrageous flirtations. I feel like I'm in some bad sitcom. . . Or alternate universe. None of these thoughts are all that comforting.  
  
Shippou has decided that my lap is much more comfortable than the ground, and is munching on his own 'fried fish'. I manage to ignore the extra carbon, and between picking out bones that only seem to bother me and avoiding chewing on the stick the fish is on, I am eating well.  
  
Time passes, and we are on our way once more. I have Kirara run scout, checking before and behind our little group. I spot a few squirrels, but nothing else.  
  
I cannot tell if I am disappointed or not.  
  
The afternoon has been passing in much the same manner, myself growing tired long before the others, Shippou's constant breathing in front of me like a lullaby sung by a mother to her child. I wonder if Inuyasha's mother ever sang him a lullaby-  
  
"Chikuso!"  
  
Everyone stops; Shippou wakes suddenly. Miroku is first to find his voice. "Ka-Kagome-san?"  
  
Shippou is looking around, confusion written on his face. I realize the only reason he awoke was due to the sudden shift in the group's emotions. "Nani?" he is asking, twisting around to find me with his eyes.  
  
Sango coughs, hiding her look of surprise behind her loose hair. Miroku looks straight ahead, but not before I catch sight of a grin starting on his face.  
  
This cannot be happening. A futile denial, I know. "N-nothing, Shippou. Just rest." I feel my cheeks warming, and I realize I am blushing. How embarrassing. . .  
  
Shippou casts his gaze over us once more, before nodding his head in childish understanding. "Hai, Kagome." The kitsune cuddles up against my stomach with a soft sigh of contentment.  
  
We continue on in strained silence, and partial amusement on Miroku's behalf. I am feeling utterly ashamed and shocked at myself.  
  
The sun has lowered considerably in the sky, making our utmost priority as setting up camp. The thin trail we have loosely been following branches, and Sango strides purposefully down the northern one. The contradictions of that are simply astounding. There is a small brook, one of many scattered throughout Nippon, with an ideal clearing situated not far from its banks.  
  
Stopping, I gently slide off Kirara's back, thanking the youkai as I do. Shippou still rests, and I hold him close in my arms as everything is laid out. Miroku is kind enough to unroll my sleeping bag, though I am somewhat wary of hentai purposes. Nothing is attempted; I gratefully lie the sleeping kitsune down on the soft surface. I catch his whimper as I step away, and I smile.  
  
Sango is eyeing me, and I hope in vain she has forgotten my slip of tongue from earlier.  
  
Common sense tells me she hasn't.  
  
With a sigh, I shrug my shoulders at her and make my way to my bag, intent on bathing. Somehow, Sango discerned my goal and joins me as I stand up, change of clothes in hand.  
  
"We will be back soon, Miroku." Sango's eyes get positively dangerous. "Don't do anything. . . Hentai."  
  
We are speaking of Miroku, right? I can hardly repress my laughter as I watch my friend send deadly looks at the houshi. "Come on, Sango. It's bath time, remember?"  
  
She is shaking her head defiantly, then nodding in acquiescence. "Right, Kagome. Let's go!" Her tone is definitive as she sends Miroku one last death glare, turning around and leading the way toward the water.  
  
I watch her stomp off, raising my eyebrows in query. If they even think of insulting my relationships, they need to take a good look at their own. Not that my friends ever insult me, but they do rag on Inuyasha.  
  
I might as well admit it. He won't stay off my mind.  
  
I start following Sango, barely paying attention to where I am walking. So tired. The brook looms up ahead, and we begin to follow the twists and turns to a fairly wide pool. Still waters run deep. Am I warning myself?  
  
If so, of what?  
  
Sango is already undressing, neatly folding her things and placing them upon the ground. Her scarred back is facing me, and I feel a brief pang of sadness for her pain. For everything that has happened to me, I haven't lost any of my family. Naraku has caused her more pain than he's ever caused me.  
  
Yet I was the one whom they so heavily relied upon; I was the pillar they leaned upon.  
  
I am the crutch and binding rope that holds them together-Superficially.  
  
Sango looks at me, waiting. I haven't yet unclothed, and the night air is doubtlessly cool on her skin. If the water is any warmer, I'm amazed.  
  
Quickly, I discard my clothing, grateful to be out of the soiled fuku that had been all I'd worn for several days. I may be in the past, but I do not wish to pick up the people's rarely cleansed look. Not that they don't bathe or anything, they just do so less often. Work tends to do that to you.  
  
I smile at Sango, shivering slightly as the night breeze swirls around me. Slowly walking up to her, I stick my toe in the frigid water, testing. The water was bone-chilling, but fresh. "Here goes."  
  
I can see Sango's shocked expression as I step back, ready to leap into the water's crippling embrace. "Kagome?"  
  
Is my name some sort of multi-layered puzzle? Does each situation call upon another meaning? I roll my shoulders, and take off. My left foot pushes off the bank, and I squeal in protest as the chilling water surrounds me. Shivering, I turn as I hear Sango mutter under her breath. "C-Come on i-i-in, S-s-Sango! T-The water's n-n-n-nice!"  
  
She has an almost unbelievable look of incredulity on her face right now. I laugh.  
  
Sango smiles, and jumps in after me. I begin religiously scrubbing at my oily skin, using a handful of sand I timidly take from the bottom of the brook. If you can really call this a brook.  
  
My hair is spread over my shoulders, and floats in the cool water behind my head. I have already picked my next target. Sango tosses several dried plants my way; she had the foresight to bring along the soap-like plants. Tossing her a grateful smile in return, I begin to grind up the plants between my hands, a soapy lather rewarding my efforts. Gently, I begin to rub this in my hair.  
  
I suppose I should start bringing my own shampoo and conditioner, from my home. I have been holding back, however, not wanting to find out what the chemical mess could do in this time. Maybe I could find a few herbal soaps, or something. Or something indeed.  
  
I turn around, hands busy in my hair. Sango is doing much the same, but her hands stop. "Kagome?"  
  
There's that name thing again. "Hai?"  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"What's what?" I don't like her tone of voice.  
  
"That," she is saying, pointing at my right shoulder. "That bruise."  
  
I glance down at myself, for the first time noticing the ugly purple-black bruise I was sporting. "Nani? I thought you guys had checked me over for injuries."  
  
Sango is looking puzzled, and stands to gingerly grasp my shoulder. "Hai, Kagome, but this wasn't there then."  
  
Meaning that the bruise, which was not hurting me at all, has only appeared recently. The last day kind of recently. With an inexplicable kind of recently. "I don't know, Sango. I don't know!" My voice is straining; I am trembling with more than the cold of the water now.  
  
"Wakaru, Kagome. I understand." I am crying now, and she attempts to get me to stand. I feel her discomfort, but I can do nothing to alleviate the emotion. "Its okay, Kagome. You're just fine!" Her voice is unsure; I can feel her resolve waver.  
  
"I know, Sango. Gomen nasai." I pull myself together; unwarranted emotional releases never help. I clamber up the bank, and I am toweling off as Sango joins me.  
  
I can tell she is wavering between continued silence and speech. Speech wins out. "Kagome, we'll find him soon. I-"  
  
For once, my mind is not where it normally is. "Are? Why do I care to find Naraku soon?"  
  
Sango blinks, before stating what should have been obvious. "I was speaking of Inuyasha, Kagome."  
  
Silence. "Oh."  
  
I dress, pulling on the nightclothes I had finally decided to bring with me to this time. The silence is stretching out between Sango and me, almost tangible. Finally, I speak again. "Let's head back, Sango. I'm getting cold." I was cold-The night had settled in quite definitely and the breeze was picking up speed along with it.  
  
I hear Sango's soft "Hai," as we set off back through the crowding trees. Fire flickers between branches as we approach camp, the crackling of the burning wood one of many night sounds. I wonder if Shippou has awoken yet-  
  
The kitsune flies at me from behind a tree, answering my question. "Kagome! I missed you!"  
  
I laugh; I can't help myself. "Shippou, I've only been gone for a few minutes."  
  
His nose is wrinkling, his eyes widening. "Really? It feels like forever!"  
  
I smile at his tone of sincerity, wondering what has brought all of this on. Normally, Shippou isn't quite this-Clingy.  
  
The fire is beckoning, and I don't bother to resist. Sango is still silent, but we are now less strained. Miroku is once more turning fish into charred sticks, but in my current state of hunger I could care less.  
  
"Konnichi wa!" Miroku appears happy, his eyes sparkling with mischief. I check to make sure that whatever I am wearing isn't transparent in the firelight. I am happy that it is not.  
  
I puzzle over grammar for a moment-Next to Mathematics it is my worst subject. Speaking of which, "I have a test in two days!"  
  
Miroku and Sango exchange looks, and Shippou frowns from my lap. "Why do you have to take those baka tests, anyway?"  
  
Inuyasha always asks me the same thing. I smile down at him, tenderly. "For my future, Shippou. I don't want to burn any bridges before I get to them." I've already left so many in smoking ruins.  
  
The kitsune youkai gives me a huff, hugging his knees to his chest. "I don't like them."  
  
I laugh again, patting his head. "I don't either, Shippou-chan."  
  
"Then why-"  
  
"I just explained, Shippou-chan."  
  
He just grumps.  
  
Miroku extends another stick to me, and I smile at the sight of charred fish. Some things will never change-Real men can't cook.  
  
The fire crackles; I tense. I hear something in the forest, approaching. With a sudden certain, I know whom it is. A name hovers on my lips, more an exhalation than an actual word. "Inuyasha. . . "  
  
Turning my head, I spot the hanyou standing on the edge of the clearing, eyes downcast and hidden behind silver bangs. I am standing before I know what I am doing, and slowly walking towards him. It is now that I notice the sticks he held clutched in his hand.  
  
No, not sticks-Broken bits of a bow. Now I am certain, and my heart aches with the knowledge, my bruised yet previously hurt-free shoulder throbbing to its own heartbeat.  
  
I am proud as my voice doesn't catch, when I decide to speak. "Inuyasha. . . " I say, lightly touching his sleeve, my own eyes on his hidden face. "It's alright to cry." He gives no response of having heard me.  
  
My feet carry me further, leading me to the forest so rich with life, though the effect is lost on me right at this moment. All I am thinking of is Inuyasha's loss. A loss I had felt, somehow. But how in heck did I feel Kikyou. . . Die? And what does that mean for me?  
  
No answers, only echoes drifting through my mind. A soft scent of fresh water leads me to the brook from earlier, though by a different route. I sit myself down, and stare at the reflection of the moon and stars in the lucid water. Then I begin to cry. 


	4. Home of Loss

Forgiven's Not Forgotten-Home of Loss  
  
Such a quaint term, is 'cry'. Does it infer loud, heart-wrenching sobs, self centered whining, or a release of unmanaged pain? Perhaps all, but I was not employing any of them. Water falls unbidden, uncalled for, from my eyes to run in rivulets down my cheeks and collect in miniature seas on the frigid ground. No, not a sound escapes my lips, except the steady whisper of my breathing if that counts at all.  
  
I struggle to see the small points of light in the sky above me, those tiny bits of sparkling luster drawing my hungry eyes.  
  
I want reassurance, I want comfort, and I don't even know why.  
  
Apparently, Inuyasha doesn't know why either. The acidic taint of miasma gives his presence away to me, though how I know for certain it is him I cannot say. I don't even know why the tell-tale scent didn't register with me when I first saw him, though perhaps I merely didn't think on the fact.  
  
Not that this is an important point as far as I am concerned; a good sense of smell was never on my priority list. In fact, that was more Inuyasha's forte. Still is, if I am not wrong in thinking that his nose led him to me.  
  
Then again, I'm still not much of a forester. The path I forced through this dark and brooding forest is probably more obvious than the changes in weather.  
  
Which I am beginning to notice, as I feel the hanyou approach me from the darkness that enfolds the world as of this moment. Yet my traitorous mouth doesn't mention the shifting winds, or the gathering clouds. No, I can't be indirect, or misleading at the moment. I have always found this hard to be with Inuyasha. I suppose I always will. "How?"  
  
I can tell he stiffened at my word; for a moment the world stopped completely. That moment is gone-My hanyou moves once again.  
  
I see him, a bit of darker shadow amongst the rest, as he steps into the light of the moon. My hair has fallen back, a consequence of my initial lost gaze into the space above our little planet. Above our little hopes, our little dreams, our little. . . Problems. Though I suppose I really mean my little problems, my little dreams, and my little hopes.  
  
To some extent, they are all I have.  
  
I still cannot see his eyes, eyes of amber so rich and deep with emotions he holds very dear to himself. Eyes that can act like mirrors into a soul whose pain has been great, and whose trust has been gradually reawakened. Eyes that could tell me so much, or so little at the same time.  
  
Those eyes which I feel have never seen me as who I am-Not whom I was. Whom my soul was at one point, to be exact.  
  
The lingo's catching up to me. An oddly appropriate thought.  
  
A small intake of breath, irregular for the man to the front and left of me, warns me now that he has seen my tears and understood what his nose had been telling him. I cannot think that this is a happy revelation for Inuyasha-He has never been able to cope with my tears.  
  
He still hasn't answered me.  
  
A sigh finds its way through my clenched teeth, a weight greater than any I have previously felt settling about my shoulders. A mantle of responsibility-And maturity. Fanciful thinking.  
  
"Sit down, Inuyasha." I am not asking, but rather telling. I feel little surprise as he complies, sitting dangerously close to the flowing waters edge. He is turned away from me.  
  
"Naraku." I startle, the sudden sound of his hoarse voice filling my ears. "Naraku killed her."  
  
"But," I begin, "His human heart wouldn't let-Oh no." Horrific images of the vaguely child-like youkai whom had been within Mount Hakurei flash through my mind with terrible clarity. "A child. Naraku's put Onigumo's heart into a child."  
  
His silence is all the confirmation I need. Yet maybe Inuyasha doesn't know for certain himself. If so. . . ? "How, Inuyasha. Tell me how."  
  
The hanyou doesn't speak, but I can hear him growling lowly. The sound is hypnotizing; I almost miss his response. "Miasma."  
  
I feel a lump form in my throat-The scent of miasma clinging to Inuyasha makes sudden sad sense. I slowly push myself to my knees. Somehow, the action still ends up being jerky and forced.  
  
Sliding forward, I wince as a rock grinds into the tender skin on my knees. One of Inuyasha's ears flicks toward me; I know he hears my soft exclamation of pain. After what has begun to feel like eternity, I reach his diffident back.  
  
My hand-fluttering, unsteady thing that it is-reaches out to touch him, pausing before making contact. I gather myself close about me, turning my uncertainties into raw emotion, converting them into some sort of foolishly brash confidence. Slender fingers merge with the rough fabric of the hanyou's haori, and my mouth begins to form words. "Inuyasha, I'm sor-"  
  
"Why are you crying?" I realize two things at once: The tears haven't stopped falling from my eyes, and I'm having the strangest sense of de-ja- vu.  
  
I smile, and speak, though not in answer to his question. "You asked me that when we were hiding from the Spider-Head youkai." I feel him tense under my hand.  
  
"Why are you crying?" If I can say anything, it is that Inuyasha is persistent.  
  
Good question. "Ano. . ." Two silver-white ears turn, intently following my every word. "Sadness."  
  
"You're crying because of sadness? What fucking kind of reason is that?" I can hear the incredulity in Inuyasha's voice.  
  
This doesn't stop my anger, however. It's the hurt I know he's feeling. "The most common kind."  
  
He's growling again; I can feel the rumbling in his chest. I know the moment his tears start to flow, as silent as my own. His shoulders slump dejectedly. "What do you have to be fucking sad about, bitch?"  
  
I flinch at his harsh words, though they are normal for him. My mouth opens, and then closes. Instead, I move my hand to his shoulder, and pull the hanyou into my embrace. "Baka. I told you already, it's alright to cry."  
  
"Ursai! I am not crying!" I remain silent as his own tears give him away, slipping off his face to hit in a miniature rainfall on my arm. A shudder passes through Inuyasha, and I can sense that he is on the edge of surrendering to his own emotions. There is turmoil there, I know this, and as I attempt to cradle his large form in my arms I can almost see his mental reserves crumble and fall.  
  
I feel like a mother, right now, comforting a child who has just realized for the first time what life truly is. A child who, in the process, has forgotten that for all of life's cruelties, there are also life's kindnesses.  
  
What I need to do will not remind this man-child in my arms of this particular fact.  
  
The turbulent clouds have covered the night sky, rendering everything into a darkness rich with the promise of heavenly release; of rain. For a moment, I feel a hand cover my own, a hand that I know belongs to a face with eyes laden with guilt and grief that the bearer knows not how to handle.  
  
Yet this only lasts a moment, as the self-same hand pushes me away, violently. I understand; perhaps my curse is to always know why. I am almost grateful, as the rain finally decides to come crashing down to earth in unchecked fury.  
  
I have my own duties to attend to, and though my heart aches now with the knowledge of pain caused for those I hold dearest, I must leave.  
  
He won't understand-I know him too well to fool myself into believing such.  
  
How I wish I could.  
  
I cannot hear the hanyou speak, as he surely does, over the thunder of the rain, but this is for the better. Denials, in any way, shape, or form, can kill my heart right now. Worse still, would be an acknowledgement or confession. I have my own inner demons to confront, once reality has set in.  
  
Turning, wet hair clinging to my head and shoulders, I start back toward where I believe camp to be. Facts begin to register, and I fully realize the impact of Inuyasha's tears. He was crying. Inuyasha-Crying. Cruel fate will make me analyze this as I have never done with mathematics, where such analyzing is part and parcel of comprehension.  
  
There it is-My reminder. School, homework, tests. . . They were all my parallels to a life of peril, my own constant, completely harmless life. Well, maybe not completely harmless. Half of my future relies on those very things.  
  
And when I start to think about this, I find that it is not as much dangerous, as critical. Yet which life do I now speak of?  
  
My footsteps pound along, keeping me steady on slick ground. Rain blinds me, but doesn't hinder my sense of direction. Amazingly enough, I have one. As I get closer to the dying campfire, a nauseous feeling stops me. The bruise on my shoulder is aching once more, with enough persistent pain to bring me to my knees.  
  
Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. The most automatic of responses, and surprisingly enough this mantra helps. My stomach settles, the bile no longer rising in my throat. I need to stand up. I have to go!  
  
Maybe not, but this thought propels me forward, awkwardly gaining my feet again. My tired eyes spot a flicker of orange, the fire that I had not long ago left behind. Almost there.  
  
"Kagome-san?" I smile at Miroku's concerned appearance from where he lounges by the fire, as I don't want to upset my friend.  
  
"Konnichi wa, Miroku. Where's Sango?"  
  
She stands from where she has been resting. The rain lessons somewhat, though this is hardly noticeable as shielded by the interlocking branches above as we are. "Sango! Just who I wanted to see." There is no mention of my short disappearance, or of Inuyasha's continued leave of absence. "Can Kirara take me back to the Hone Kui no Ido?"  
  
The exterminator looks slightly shocked at my request, but still nods her head understandingly. "Hai, Kagome-sama." She motions with her hand, and her friend, the felinistic youkai Kirara, transforms to her full size, unhappy with the scant rain that has been falling down upon her.  
  
"Gomen, Kirara," I whisper, heaving myself onto her back while I reach for the bag Miroku so kindly brought for me. Kirara's ear turns to meet my voice, and the youkai nods her head, though I know not if in understanding of my apology. I allow my eyes, misting over so slightly with unshed tears, to turn to the others. "Gomen Miroku, Sango, Shippou." A quick glance to the darkened forest, silent with the onset of rain. "Inuyasha. . . " My heart constricts, but I force a smile to my face.  
  
Shippou is resting once more on my sleeping bag, as of yet protected from the cold reality which has set in around the three ningens, and perhaps the youkai as well. "When he gets back, tell him I've gone home for a while. I should be back within the next three days, I hope." Houshi and exterminator nod in unison.  
  
"Arigato, everyone. Ja ne." Kirara is already in the air as I am speaking these words, running on invisible pathways through a sky of dangerous black and gray. Did they hear my goodbyes? I hope so. This trip, I think, should not be a long one.  
  
"Kagome-san? Is that you?" I am looking down in surprise as Myouga appears from under Kirara's fur.  
  
"Hai, Myouga-san. Why are you here?" He had run away from the last battle, had hidden as he usually did. I wonder if it is because his is a coward, or if his knowledge makes him fear the 'could be's' and 'what if's'.  
  
"Well, I, err, decided to, uh, find out some information concerning, ah-"  
  
I silence the flea, speaking in his stead. "It's alright, I know."  
  
He puffs up, nodding his head with sage-like wisdom. "Yes, indeed." He pauses, obviously thinking. "Where are we going, Kagome-san?"  
  
"I believe, Myouga-san, that I am as much of a coward as you are. I'm running away, with excuses much less transparent than your own but of the exact same caliber."  
  
"Running? From what?" He sounds confused, I think. Something begins to register in his head. "Thin excuses?"  
  
My smile is a reflection of my sad eyes as I reply. "Affairs of the heart."  
  
"Sounds like one of those bound scrolls you bring back with you."  
  
"Does it really, Myouga-san?" I sigh, clutching Kirara's dampening fur more firmly with my hands. The landscape below us, a collection of trees and hills, valleys, lakes, ponds, clearings, and villages passes by in a shadowed blur. So different from the cement Tokyo I've grown up in. Peaceful in one sense, deadly in another.  
  
Myouga has lapsed into silence. The raging sound of thunder reaches my ears, behind us and before us. Lightning strikes in the far off mountains, a deadly spear of blazing beauty from the heavens. I find my voice again as a thought strikes me.  
  
"Myouga, what was Inuyasha's mother like?"  
  
The flea has a worshipful expression in his eyes, as he begins to tell me what he remembers. "Oh, she was the most beautiful of mortal women, with hair like gossamer and eyes deeper than any sea. She was a princess, a most beautiful pearl in the oyster of humanity. Her heart was bigger than the whole of the world, her understanding and hurt for her child greater than can ever really be known."  
  
I stay still, listening to tales of a woman I will never meet, a woman who left her son by no choice of her own. Myouga speaks on, not needing my encouragement to talk of the woman he so obviously admired. I register little of what he says, too lost in what had happened earlier this night to fully comprehend the flea's words.  
  
Kirara sinks lower in the sky, the end of my journey approaching. Myouga doesn't stop his flow of words, and I do not feel the need to silence him. The trees rise up to meet us, silent watchers of the forest, impassive in their nonjudgmental way. The Hone Kui no Ido in its meadow is a sight that freezes my heart, for some inexplicable reason.  
  
I dismount, scratching Kirara's ears as I do so. "Arigato, Kirara. Take yourself and Myouga-san back to the others, and do be careful." A pitiful meow greets my words, but the feline wastes no time in taking to the air. "Sayonara," I whisper, the wind stealing my words from me.  
  
My steps are hesitant as I approach the gateway to my time, to the reality I had grown up in. When will I be back? I don't know. Maybe when I said I would, maybe longer.  
  
I have to tend to a few wounds on my heart before I can face Inuyasha again. There was too much torture in his amber gaze for me to face without some sort of shield. I can't have my heart broken yet again, the glue holding the pieces together already losing some of its hold.  
  
The tenuous grip I have on my sanity hums with painful clarity, and with a flying leap I am falling, ever falling through a scattered light that should have never been there. I close my eyes, waiting for ground to reappear beneath me. When it does, I find myself falling to my knees.  
  
"Chikuso!" This was the second time today I had used that word, and I greatly disliked myself for this. I've been around Inuyasha for too long. The thought is kind, rather than cruel.  
  
I suppress a groan as I stand, my knees that had been tender from earlier now bleeding from their rough treatment. "Baka," I call myself, hooking my large bag over my shoulders.  
  
I now need to climb up the ladder.  
  
Needless to say in so many words, I am not looking forward to this.  
  
My rain-slicked hands grasp the ladders rungs as I haul myself up toward the lip of this stupid well. I feel a brief lick of anger touch my soul, but soon this is gone. Left behind is the bitter embers, growing cold within me.  
  
I grip the edge of the well, flopping onto my stomach and whipping my legs up and around. Once I feel like I can stand without falling, I move. The shrine is dark, concealing the corners and giving the room a rounded effect. My shoulder is aching once again, pounding and pulsing. I feel light-headed, and lean against the well's rim for support.  
  
A single thought takes form in my mind, a single, scary question. What's wrong?  
  
Worry enfolds me, embracing me with its cold, cold arms. I break out in gooseflesh, every individual hair on my body standing straight up.  
  
What's wrong?  
  
One step. Another. Yet another, and now I am at the base of those steps that would take me up and out into the world I had been born into. I hesitate.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
I startle, not recognizing my own voice. Even though I knew I'd spoken. Even though.  
  
Anger flares to life, and I take the first, daring step toward my home. "Chikuso! What's wrong?" The steps fall beneath my feet, a short, pounding tattoo taking me up, up to the world. Not even my backpack weighs me down.  
  
Once again, I hesitate before the door, caught like some poor creature in a spider's web. Dread fills me. I wasn't thinking of Naraku by chance.  
  
Thud.  
  
My backpack has slid off my shoulders, kicking up a puff of dust as it hits the wooden planks I stand on. My hands reach forward, to slid the door back.  
  
Terror seizes my soul. The courtyard, always so spotless, is stained with some dark, black substance. The scent of iron assaults my nostrils, and I know with horrifying clarity what I am seeing.  
  
It is blood. Human blood.  
  
I am running, though not running aimlessly, following the trail of black by the light of the quarter moon. Denial floods my mind, denial that I am awake and not dreaming. Yet never had any of my dreams conveyed such finality, such dread certainty that something, something awful, had happened. Was happening.  
  
My voice returns to me, and now I use this weapon as effectively as I can. "Souta? Mama? Jii-chan? SOUTA?" I remind myself not to scream, not to waste my breath in such a way. My speed increases, and by some miracle I manage to not slip in the slick stains. Ahead was my house.  
  
And none of the lights were on.  
  
Fear settles like a clamp around my midsection, squeezing. Air-I need air.  
  
My feet slow, my body regaining precious, life-giving air. Terror wants to immobilize me-I cannot let this happen. Everything is in slow motion, my approach to the front of my house taking an ungodly amount of time. Not a whisper escapes my lips. Not a sound.  
  
The blood is newer here, more thickly permeating the air with its stench. I am hypersensitive to this, yet still I walk through the puddles congealing in the room.  
  
I see nothing unusual, if I discount the blood marring the floor, the walls, the windows, and even the ceilings. Nothing is out of place, everything neat.  
  
The same in the kitchen. Nothing missing, nothing misplaced. But the blood, oh, the blood is everywhere.  
  
Shock. Immense shock takes hold of me as I follow the hallway to the stairs, christened with blackend blood. What an absurd contrast. Everything, everything was so neat, nothing messy, but the blood. . . The blood was not. Why? Why the control?  
  
The top of my stairs. Everything is dark, the doors impassive observers. Like the trees they had been made of. Yet they were more sinister, in their frames, for they hid behind them unspeakable acts of terror. Massacres. My family, and maybe their murderer.  
  
For I hold no hope in my heart that they are alive.  
  
The first door, I begin to open slowly. This is my brother's room, my dear and sweet Souta's haven.  
  
Pristine. I can see no blood anywhere, but a perverse sense of cynicism forces me in further. My eyes travel to his bed, and I flinch. The bed has been raveged, the pillows and blankets mauled. Here there was blood, dying the already red sheets a dark maroon.  
  
My stomach flips, and I now hurry away to the bathroom. There is blood here, in the bath and on the walls. I shudder, feeling an urge to wash my hands clean, clean of all this blood I haven't even touched. I twist the handles, turning on the faucet. Cold water splashes onto my cupped hands, and I lift them to my face.  
  
I haven't dried off from the rain that had been in the past, but this water seems like a knife of frigid chill through my ribs the way it wakes me from my shocked retreat. This is reality, Kagome. This is really happening. My lungs fill with ragged breaths, but I cannot cry. I can only stare at my hands, and the water running over them.  
  
Slowly, I raise my head, for some inexplicable reason. The mirror shows my face in the weak moonlight, but also shows something else. I lean forward, terrified yet intent on reading the word that is there. I am squinting, not able to make much out without turning on the lights. For that was something I could not do.  
  
Kagome.  
  
My name was on the mirror, written in blood. My name.  
  
I dry gag, running back into the hall. I can care less that the water is still running-I am not going to go back to that atrocity.  
  
I ignore the rooms where my mother and grandfather slept, going straight to my own room. I know quite clearly where the bodies are. Where the murderer most likely still is.  
  
My hand doesn't tremble as I push open the door, nor does the murderer jump out of the shadows. They are gone from here, but I do not believe that they have gone far. "Mama? Souta? Jii-chan?" Three still forms lie on the floor, all appearing to be peacefully asleep if I only looked at their faces.  
  
Spots of blood destroy the illusion. I kneel, reaching my hand out to brush a stray lock of hair off my younger brother's face. His face is all that remains human, as with the rest of my family. The rest is mangled beyond recognition, the obvious source of the blood elsewhere.  
  
"No." Is that my cracked voice? It must be. "No, no, no, no, NO!" I am standing now, fists by my side. I strain, searching for something. I sense a strongly dark youki from outside, near the kitchen. Terror, my immense terror, my immense lack of comprehension turns rapidly into anger.  
  
"You will pay." I begin to run, back along the path I had taken. To the kitchen, where in a single lucid moment I find myself taking one of the large knives from a drawer. Fat lot that would do, but this is better than nothing.  
  
Through the kitchen door, and into the night once more. I sense movement, and throw the knife in that direction. Great. I already lost my only weapon. A furiated hiss meets my ears, and the youkai steps out of the shadows. With surprise, I note that the knife has struck home on the youkai's left arm.  
  
He was reptilian of face and body, though he walked upon two legs. A forked tongue flickered between sharp teeth, wicked talons decorating the youkai's unnaturally long fingers. Another scent finally reaches me.  
  
This youkai is decaying. He probably isn't even alive.  
  
"Kagooooomeeee." He hisses my name, and anger overtakes my shocked self once more as he pulls the knife out of his scaly arm.  
  
"You. . .You killed my FAMILY!" I am leaping toward the youkai, throwing myself at the creature. He backhands me, effectively throwing me away. For the third time tonight, my knees are rubbed raw. A trail of blood marks my skid from where I have hit the ground.  
  
"Theey were weeeeak, pathhhhhetic humanssssss." He scurries forward, a reptilian grin on his blood smeared face. "Theey tassssted good."  
  
Anger. I seem to have a lot of this in reserve. "My family! I'll make you pay, BASTARD!" I dimly am aware of how much I am acting like Inuyasha at this moment. Funny that I fall back on his example when the shock has taken me over otherwise.  
  
I am attempting to stand, but failing miserably as the pain freezes my legs beneath me.  
  
The youkai laughs, a painfully high cackling. "You cannnnot ssssstand, cannnn you bitcccch?"  
  
I pull off my best imitation of Inuyasha growling in anger.  
  
The laughter continues. "Naraku ssssshall beeee sssso pleassssed. I sssshall have my resssst, at lasssst."  
  
Shock, again. Naraku? Alive? We never killed him? I am staring at this pathetic youkai corpse, this murderer of my family, this destroyer of my home. He shouldn't have been here, in my time. He shouldn't have existed. I watch as he darts forward, talons extended to my throat. I close my eyes, the bitter aftertaste of my passing anger more like grief than any other emotion. Soon, it would all be over. 


	5. Never Left Behind

Forgiven's Not Forgotten-Never Left Behind  
  
I must have blinked. One moment, the youkai zombie was there, about to rip out my throat, to take away my pain, now suddenly he's gone. I slump forward slightly, my backbone turning into rubber. Trembling arms are all that hold me away from the cool rock of the courtyard. The cool, bloodied stone.  
  
Even they give out on me, and I fall toward the unforgiving ground. I can't hear anything above the rapid beating of my own heart, can't feel anything besides the pain within it. Tears find an outlet, leaking out the corners of my eyes to rest in puddles, mingling with my own blood. Maybe I'm already dead.  
  
An odd, though not entirely unwelcome, thought.  
  
My eyes, blurred as they are, can see. A question, unexpected. If this is death, then why do I see my killer fighting still?  
  
Fighting who? The darkness holds the youkai's aggressor, leaving me unable to tell whom it is. Does it even matter?  
  
Not if I am already dead, it doesn't.  
  
My eyes drift closed, but in the moment before they are shut completely, I see the last person I expect at this time. Inuyasha? Is he dead, too? The tears fall harder from my eyes. I have never thought that the dead could cry. He didn't deserve death.  
  
Yet why were the two fighting? We are all dead anyway, fighting's pointless.  
  
A stangled hiss, a piercing cry parts the veils of my conciousness. Something has given, and from what I am hearing the murdering youkai is the most likely candidate. Has there been a death-after death?  
  
I feel something approaching, and I am surprised that the dead can even feel. Aren't I supposed to be floating, or something? Everything else had, when faced with death. Why am I special?  
  
"KAGOME?"  
  
I am happy to know that Inuyasha hasn't lost his voice in death.  
  
Hands push me on my side, and I curl into a fetal position.  
  
Apparently, he hasn't lost the ability to touch, either.  
  
"We're all dead, aren't we." I open my eyes again, to meet his own confused amber pools.  
  
"What the hell are you talking about, bitch?" He pulls me off the ground, lifting me to my feet. My spine hasn't solidified, and my head slumps to my chest without the support.  
  
Why doesn't he understand? "He killed us, didn't he? My family, myself, though. . . " I lift my head to peer into Inuyasha's eyes, "I am perplexed as to how you died."  
  
His eyes still look confused, but his voice is anything other than confused. "Kagome, listen to me. We are not dead."  
  
I am shaking my head negatively, unable to believe. "No, that can't be. Why would you be here if you were alive? Now that I think about it, where's Kikyou?" I glance around, confused by her absence. "Shouldn't she be here?"  
  
Inuyasha's eyes flare with what I believe to be pain before he pulls me forward into his crushing embrace. "Kagome, you're in shock. We aren't dead. Do I feel dead to you?"  
  
Actually, he feels rather warm. And he stinks. Like sweat and blood and something dead. "But," I allow my head to slump forward once more, arms stuck at my sides, "You even smell of decay."  
  
Surprise alights briefly in his eyes, though I do not see this, before he replys. "Kagome, that was the youkai." He glances around, smelling the stink of blood everywhere most likely. "Tell me what happened." His voice brooked no argument.  
  
I shrug my shoulders. Relating the events leading up to my own death shouldn't be that hard. After all, I'll be seeing my family again soon. "Well, I knew something was wrong when I came out of the well. There was blood everywhere, leading to my house." I pull away from Inuyasha, to look at the house behind me.  
  
"There was so much blood, so much blood wherever I looked. In the rooms, all over everything. But that wasn't all." I fall silent.  
  
"And?" Inuyasha's rough voice urges me on.  
  
"The bathroom. My name was on the mirror, written in blood. Blood, Inuyasha." My voice is haunted, as I continue to recount what has happened. "Then I knew that they'd be in my room. Everyone would be there. And they were. They were there, Inuyasha. Dead, but there." My eyes light up once more, and I start toward the house. "They're probably waiting for me, you know."  
  
I feel his clawed hand pull me back, his arms wrapping around me. Inuyasha's too tall for his own good, in my opinion. Yet what are opinions to the dead? "Kagome. . . "  
  
I am slightly annoyed. "Inuyasha, my family's waiting for me. Let go."  
  
He doesn't listen to me, however. In fact, he's walking right on back to the well, with me in his arms.  
  
"Let go of me!" I begin to struggle, but he ignores my efforts. "Chikuso! I want to see my family, Inuyasha!"  
  
His voice is rough as he speaks. "They're dead, Kagome."  
  
I snort. "I know. Now let me-"  
  
"You're still alive Kagome. They're gone! You can't bring them back!"  
  
I start to speak loudly, in a futile effort to stop his voice. "I'm not alive! I can't be! I have to see them, Inuyasha, I can't let them leave without me!" My struggling increases, but his arms tighten around me.  
  
"I'm not going to let you kill yourself, Kagome." I must be imagining the pain in his voice. After all, this was just some sort of cruel joke, right?  
  
Still, I am stunned. The deeper dark of the wellhouse surrounds us, and the hanyou leaps down the stairs to arrive on the well's lip. "Inuyasha," I am asking, incredulous, "How in hell can I kill myself when I'm already dead?" His answer is to jump into the well. "INUYASHA!"  
  
I am feeling quite pissed off. In reality, I don't know how any ghost can have the array of emotions I do, but apparently this is possible. Inuyasha still has me quite firmly in his arms as he leaps back up the well, landing in the early morning hours amid the dewy grasses and glistening trees. My anger is reaching a pinnacle, and I decide to test a theory I've been rolling around in my head ever since he'd stopped me from entering the house.  
  
"Inuyasha?" My voice is perfectly calm, perfectly controlled.  
  
"Hn?"  
  
"Osuwari."  
  
Well, needless to say, the nenju necklace still works. Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten that Inuyasha falls forward. Since I am in his arms, this is quite an awkward thing to have happen. His eyes meet mine, annoyed yet questioning.  
  
See? They said, staring into my own. Can't you see you're alive? I'm alive? Can't you accept what happened and move on?  
  
My eyes shoot an accusing message right back at him. This means nothing, except that the binding effects of the nenju necklace extends to the soul. This is supposed to convince me?  
  
I feel his chest rumbling, knowing that he is growling at me. I can care less. What's he going to do? Kill me? I feel a perverse urge to laugh at this thought.  
  
I can sense his body regain movement, feeling his muscles bunch as he prepares to stand once more. Oddly enough, my shoulder has begun to hurt again. Aren't the dead beyond pain? If this is true, then why have I so clearly felt the ground as I subdued Inuyasha?  
  
I am interrupted from these thoughts as Inuyasha stands. Curiousity stirs in my breast. Dead I might well be, but curious I still am. "Where are we going?"  
  
No answer. Fine. Be that way. I feel my eyelids droop, and know that I am exhausted. How? The dead can. . . Tire?  
  
No matter. Inuyasha's self-created wind stirs my hair, and I now surrender to the tide that wishes to engulf me.  
  
"Kagome?"  
  
Time must have passed. "Leavemealone." Sleep is looking so inviting, though I still haven't left its embrace.  
  
"We're almost there."  
  
There? Where's there? I manage to open one eye, and look down in shock. A bit in the distance, Sango sits on a grassy knoll, Miroku close to her side. If I know anything about either of them, then she most likely is fending off his rather. . . Perverted attempts.  
  
Yet this isn't what is sending me into shock. They can't be dead-They actually had something to live for. Which means that I. . . I am not dead either. Yet nothing that has happened recently has been in my imagination, so. . .  
  
My entire family is dead. And I am alive.  
  
In the most realistic sense, I am now all alone in the world.  
  
Inuyasha must have felt me tense up a little, for he now is gazing down on my face. His eyes hold understanding, but not for long. Am I going to make it my remaining life's mission to cause this man pain?  
  
"Osuwari." A look of pure shock alights in his twin amber pools, shortly being followed by anger. We are at least a hundred feet in the air-If I don't move from where he holds me I most likely won't survive. I can see in his eyes that he knows this.  
  
Yet still I am not ready for the action he takes because of me. The support of his arms suddenly disappears; in my shock I forget my unconscious mission as I cling to Inuyasha's neck. Am I truly that afraid? I now let go, to prove to myself I am not as I always have been. I am not afraid anymore.  
  
Unfortunately, Inuyasha doesn't just let me fall. How I wish I could, forever hanging in space awaiting a demise that will reunite me with the part of the future I have lost. My hanyou seems to believe differently, as he swings me onto his back. I must admit, he is rather agile when he needs to be.  
  
One hand, the hand that has so many times pushed me away with such vehmnence, now clutches to my own, unwilling to let go. He would pin me here on his back, while the ground is rushing up to meet him in a none to tender embrace. Guilt briefly assages my senses, before all feeling is lost.  
  
Touchdown.  
  
Inuyasha doesn't make a sound, though I know that this has hurt him. My own breath is leaving my lungs in a violent torrent, causing me to gasp as a fish out of his watery home. As oxygen returns to my lungs, I register a small but important fact; Inuyasha has let go.  
  
I figure I now have a grand total of thirty seconds to evade the hanyou, to escape into the lightening forest. Birds that have been interrupted by Inuyasha's race to the ground are beginning to sing once more as I push myself away from my hanyou's back. His eyes glare accusingly at me as I rise, somehow all seeing though he is communing now with the dirt.  
  
The coward for a moment I had left behind returns to me now. I break eye contact, turning around and running for all my worth. Actually, I'm not that bad of a runner. That is, when there are no roots or rocks lying in wait to trip up my feet.  
  
This miserable day seems to lack any of these, though I heisitate to call this a blessing.  
  
I sense Inuyasha arise in fury from his nature meeting, almost able to hear his footsteps as he races after me. I cannot outrun him, curse the facts of reality, but I might be able to delay. I don't want reality right now. It has ceased to exist for me. Right now I need the fantasy, the single hope that if I run hard and fast enough I will be able to escape, I will be able to return to the well and I will find my family unharmed on the other side.  
  
How quickly I have gone from one extreme of denial to the other.  
  
More importantly, where will I be when my feet stop?  
  
That answer is easy-I will be falling. Why? Because now I am falling, for the second time in the last two minutes.  
  
Too much has happened in the past hour for me to comprehend. Perhaps this is why I feel myself falling not only in reality, but also into the depths of my own mind. I welcome this blank façade that engulfs me. For now I cannot feel.  
  
For now there is no pain.  
  
Ah, but reality is a bitch, no? I really shouldn't even think like this, but while I'm finding my way back through the haze in my mind I believe that this is more than valid. I still can't see much, though I think this is because it is now night. The sun has set.  
  
Will it ever rise?  
  
Youch, I know that this chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but. . . Hehehe, it works better this way. Anyway, now I need to get working on the NEXT chapter, but in the meantime I'd like to thank me lover-ly reviewers! All six of them! Heh.  
  
Here goes:  
  
Hanako- Thank you very much!  
  
Noelle- Thank you as well! I feel touched that anyone actually wants to read my writings!  
  
Skittles- And thanks to you! I like saying thanks, shows me appreciation. . .  
  
Suns Golden Ray- Awh! I feel loved! Heh-heh. Thankies!  
  
Niasdreams- Yep, Naraku found a way. I'll elaborate on that in later chapters, but he's a crafty one, ne? As to what she actually felt. . . There will be much explaining in this next chapter on that. And everyone was acting strange because. . . The next chapter will elaborate on that as well. Anyway, thankies!  
  
And  
  
Josie- I hope that this chapter cleared up a few of your questions. Though I wonder if anyone caught onto the fact that Inuyasha did get there rather quickly. . . :: cues foreshadowing music ::  
  
Ha! Now you MUST read the next chapter! Mesa evil. . . Nyah. 


	6. Embers Brought To Life

Forgiven's Not Forgotten - Embers Brought To Life  
  
Of course, if I want to see a sunrise, I had better wait until morning.  
  
For now, the only light is the fire that someone has built, the orange and yellow flame within the circle of stones. I hear voices, those of my companions. I am trying to make out what they say, though the effort is taxing me.  
  
". . . Couldn't have been there for more than half an hour." Ah, that must be Inuyasha speaking.  
  
"Yet how do you explain the time difference? Inuyasha, it's been a week since she left, but only half an hour for her?" Is that Sango? What does she mean time difference?  
  
"I don't know exterminator." This is beginning to sound like one of those bad bootlegs some of my friends are prone to buying.  
  
"I'm most worried about the sudden appearance of that bruise. It's gotten worse."  
  
"Why the hell didn't you tell me about this sooner?" Inuyasha doesn't sound all that pleased.  
  
So I decide to speak before anyone else. "Probably because you wouldn't have listened." He turns toward me, I think. "Because you NEVER listen when it's important."  
  
Everyone is speechless. For the moment.  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
I sit myself up, feeling an ember of anger flare to life inside of my soul. "You heard me."  
  
Miroku is making a placating gesture with his hands, while Sango is eyeing me speculatively. "Now, Kagome-san, was that really called for?"  
  
I don't want to hear anything from Miroku. "Shut up, houshi."  
  
I wonder at my own energy. A moment previous, opening my eyes was a torture. "Just shut the hell up." I struggle out of the confines of the blankets I am under, in a way that would have been humorous under different circumstances. No one is laughing right now.  
  
Finally I am free, and so now I stand. There is still blood on my clothing, dried but blood nonetheless. My hair feels frazzled, and I am relatively sure it looks like I just crawled out of hell.  
  
With the images rolling through my mind, I might as well have.  
  
Several sets of eyes are looking at me in shock, one golden pair slowly turning toward anger. Let them, some animalistic part of my mind is saying; Let us see what he will do.  
  
No doubt this will be interesting, but I feel as if there is some caged bird inside my body, fighting to get out. To cut loose. I feel as if I must surrender to this bird's wing beats, their tattoo as steady as my heart beat. As steady as the sun.  
  
Yet that isn't true.  
  
The sun is never steady. Each night it dives behind the world we live in, to run away from those problems better handled at night. Like a coward.  
  
Like the coward I am.  
  
Odd, isn't it, how the courage that failed me in other times supports me now. So very, very odd.  
  
Inuyasha stands at the fireside, slowly moving toward me as if he is afraid that I might run. Mayhap I should, but in the end the effort will be futile.  
  
After all, I am human.  
  
"Kagome," Inuyasha begins, his voice calm and controlled, belying the anger that I can sense he holds within, "Kagome, your family is gone."  
  
Miroku and Sango both look at Inuyasha in shock, Sango immediately moving her gaze to my face. I don't want to meet her eyes; instead, I hold Inuyasha's gaze now with my own. "I know. They're dead. And they'll stay that way."  
  
Is this really my voice that speaks in such burning condensation? It must be, seeing as how none other has spoken.  
  
So I feel no surprise as I register the unhidden anger in Inuyasha's eyes, now knowing that I am correct in my suppositions. Only too correct.  
  
"There's nothing you can do for them now Kagome." The hanyou has taken another step toward me, closing the gap. I refuse to back down.  
  
"Over time, Inuyasha, I grew to learn you were an idiot. Only now do I realize just how much of an idiot you really are."  
  
Anger finally consumes his gaze as he gives up the act of supplication and lunges toward me. Did he expect me to move? Apparently, as his mistaken tackle drags us both to the ground.  
  
Cynical, sarcastic humor takes hold of me. "Oh, is it a roll in the hay you want, Inuyasha? I'm so sorry to disappoint, but Kikyou would be so much more suited for you."  
  
He growls violently as he pins my shoulders to the ground. I will not bother flinching. I doubt he will notice right now, much less care. Sango and Miroku are warily watching from the fireside, ready to come to my rescue in an instant, I suppose. "Kikyou is dead, bitch!"  
  
My eyes are narrowing in anger as I aim my invisible dagger at the hanyou's heart. "She's been brought back once, should another time be so hard?"  
  
Inuyasha flinches. I know that the meaning behind my words has hit home, but he apparently has seen many more than what I intended with that statement. "That won't work on them, Kagome."  
  
Ah. So he has thought I mean my family. Interesting, but how wrong he is. "I would never wish such a baneful existence on anyone I love, hanyou. Never."  
  
Interesting, also, his reaction to these simple words.  
  
I've never seen such a lack of expression on Inuyasha's face before. Then again, there isn't that much to see.  
  
Not to mention, I've never been quite so bodily handled by him before. While I am tossed casually over his shoulder the hanyou is speaking calmly to Miroku and Sango. "We'll be back in the morning. Be prepared to leave."  
  
I have always enjoyed sitting backward in my seat in the car, watching everything pull away behind us in our own secure little world. Seeing what others have seen, never knowing what is coming next. There's almost a thrill in that sensation.  
  
Even now, as the hanyou I've thrown my heart to just to be trampled on, torn up, even now I feel this same sensation, watching as for some absurd reason the pinpoint of light from the fire fading so slowly.  
  
Almost does the fire I feel within me simmer down, almost but not quite.  
  
And as the forest passes around us, I begin to contemplate my own emotional turmoil as the leaps and bounds that should have been jerky are misleadingly gentle while full of grace.  
  
If someone were to be watching Inuyasha, that is. I really just get a nice view of the forest and his hair.  
  
This fuels the anger that has been building inside, this and the limited amount of movement I am allowed. Yet it isn't only anger I am feeling, no, it can't be that simple and straightforward. Intermingled with this anger is grief, the bitterest of all, grief, guilt, and hopelessness.  
  
In contradiction, perhaps, is the same hope I feel. To triumph, perhaps to eliminate the future threat in the past. I can't say for sure how this effects anything in my time, how my stepping on that blade of grass earlier effects the future of the planet. If this is destiny I play out, or if it is free will after a goodly amount of time. If I have already acted, and the future is set in stone, or if the future is water fitting to the container that I shape in part in the past.  
  
With that hope is also a longing, an absolve, the will to protect and heal. My friends, they are also in my heart, lending me my own love. Love that is hurting oh so much from the recent grief, love that is staggering under a burden too great for its fragile shoulders. Love that needs the help of courage to go on, the aid of comprehension to stand, the hands of desire in all forms to carry on.  
  
I notice that Inuyasha has stopped, though I haven't heard him speak. He still doesn't as he places my feet on the ground, lifting me from his shoulder to force me to meet his eyes once more.  
  
The expression of muted hurt, anger, and confusion is masked in part by the need to assure himself I was there; I was all right. He'd be disappointed to know that I could so easily read him.  
  
After all, he had always guarded himself so carefully.  
  
I am not really listening to what he says; my inner turmoil is still too great. Yet one word, one name breaks through to me. Naraku.  
  
All that inner turmoil I had been experiencing stops. Inside, everything has frozen over, ice cold. Then a single emotion comes to the surface, an ember even hotter than the one that had set me off earlier. Flames melt the ice, burning the other emotions up with them, consuming my body.  
  
Inuyasha must have seen the change in my eyes.  
  
"Kagome?"  
  
I growl, imitating the man I love and, I realize, live for at the moment. "I am going to kill Naraku!"  
  
There is vehemence in my voice that clearly surprises Inuyasha, though I believe he thinks I don't notice this. How wrong this belief is, how arrogant. I can almost smell the surprise on him.  
  
And I tell him as much. "Why so surprised, Inuyasha? You saw what he did to my family."  
  
I will kindly leave out the fact he hadn't seen exactly what had happened, but he had certainly seen and smelt the result. The briefest flash of black blood on cool, unforgiving stone glimmers in my mind, before being enveloped by the bright fire of my fury.  
  
Suspicion flickers through his amber orbs before he responds. "I'm not surprised, Kagome, but this isn't like you." There was an undercurrent of urgency in his tone.  
  
This only fuels my fire further. Violently, I push away from one of the only living friends, no, loves I have right now. Surprisingly enough, I do break free of his grasp on my shoulders.  
  
"How would you know?" Why am I pushing so hard? I don't really care, not right now, though I will later.  
  
But later is not now.  
  
These emotions, or rather these single urges to shred, to tear, to destroy overtakes my common sense. All I want is blood; and the only blood I want is Naraku's.  
  
A few, strangled words pass my lips, so laced with the promise of violence and menace that if I were not the one speaking I'd be flinching away. Yet I am, so as the disinterested participant in my own conversation I could care less. In fact, I can care less.  
  
"You don't know me."  
  
I can no longer hear anything past the blood pounding in my veins, and the red haze that has been enveloping my sight is now worse than any darkness I have ever faced.  
  
I jump as a hand falls onto my shoulder, holding my feet to the ground as yet another imitation of a growl escapes my throat.  
  
Except, this isn't so much an imitation.  
  
It's dangerously close to the real thing.  
  
Slight shock has frozen me. Do I really long for Naraku's end by my hands? Am I that selfish that I would make others forgo the semi-honour of destroying the blasphemous hanyou, just for my own revenge?  
  
Am I that shallow in the remembrance of my family? Blindly murdering the one whom ordered their deaths in a time I never would have believed him to be in?  
  
None of this will bring them back.  
  
Nothing can. . . Can it?  
  
My voice so recently filled with anger is now shaking and infirm. "I- Inuyasha?" His golden eyes meet my own, with something I can only call understanding in their depths. "What's happening to me?" My voice has shrunk to that of a whisper.  
  
"You're grieving." The matter of fact-ness in his voice is somewhat tempered.  
  
Yet he has misunderstood my question.  
  
"No. That's not. . . Not what I mean."  
  
I am stepping back, though his hands still clamp my shoulders. The small space I have just gained gives me a little more perspective. Yet only a little.  
  
It is not enough.  
  
As a child, you learn that everything takes time. Everything that is worthwhile needs a little bit of effort. Through this do we discover.  
  
Suppose that as a child, everything was given, everything had an answer and you never learned, because you never needed to learn. There is no concept of time. And suppose you live among thousands, millions just like you, not knowing of time or its boundaries. Then suppose you were abruptly introduced to time, told to shake Time's hand, grin and bear it.  
  
Time, the euphemism for understanding, has just succeeded in slapping me full across the face. Now I know why, why the little things mean something more, why the littlest details now are brought to my attention. How I know that something small, perhaps a rabbit, was killed in this clearing this morning. How I know that the victim was female, and that she had seven youngsters that had scattered when she stayed behind. How I hear the screech of an owl, far off, as if it were right beside me. How I am changing.  
  
I'll be damned if I let Inuyasha know about this.  
  
So I play the grieving girl, the lost child. Tears, real enough but for a completely different loss, trail down my cheeks. I thought I had no more tears to cry. Sometimes, I am so mistaken. "Maybe you're right, Inuyasha." I can almost hear his ego swelling at this. "Maybe I am grieving."  
  
I stop myself, barely, from flinching as he moves forward, feet crunching on the forest floor. Now that I know what I'm looking for, everything seems to be even more sensitive. I wonder how Inuyasha handles this.  
  
Probably instinct.  
  
One up for him, then, but I'm in no competition right now. As I feel his arms encompass my shoulders, I understand what exactly I am in.  
  
I'm in business.  
  
The business of elimination.  
  
It's now my job to kill.  
  
Right. Well, now that I've gotten over myself, I should really examine my motives. Most prominently, the complete and total extermination of a certain youkai that has caused havoc in my time.  
  
No. Not my time. Not anymore.  
  
Fine, then, in the future. Innocents whose only crime was being related to me. No one should die for that.  
  
"Kagome."  
  
Damn that name paradox. "Inuyasha?"  
  
His draws me back to see his face once more. In his amber depths, I see something that shouldn't surprise me, but does none the less. He is scared.  
  
No, not 'I'm gonna scream' scared, but the scared that can freeze your very soul, leave you helpless and immobile in impending doom.  
  
And I know what his fear is for. Why his eyes are so tired, so lost. It's for me, because even now I'm moving too fast for him to keep up. Maybe I should tell him after all.  
  
"What's happening to you? You're changing, Kagome, and I just can't fucking handle it! I'm sorry about your family, I'm sorry I wasn't there, I'm sorry. What the hell do you want me to say? To do?"  
  
I raise my hand to his lips, silencing him. "For now, I just want you to shut up. Uh-uh," I continue, seeing he wishes to speak, "Your turn to listen." I am taking a deep breath, and now sighing. "I'm sorry. I haven't been myself, and there is no excuse for what I've tried to do." This is rather a lot, for the day I've been back here. "I'm not the first person in the world to lose family, and I won't be the last." Brave words for a coward, but mine either way. For a moment, tears threaten, but that moment is soon in passing.  
  
"You've lost Kikyou, and although there are things about her, about me, I didn't like, I still feel sympathy for you." That word, sympathy, sounds so cruel when I speak it. "Right now we need to concentrate on two things: The retrieval of the remaining Shikon no Kakera, and the defeat of Naraku. Simple enough, ni?"  
  
He is shaking his head in violent negation, grabbing my wrist and forcing my hand away from his face. "No, it's not that simple, Kagome. Naraku's a lot-"  
  
I will admit it, to myself if none other. I don't want to hear anything right now; I have no patients for listening. So I interrupt, and with what cannot be mistaken for anything other than a growl in the back of my throat, I speak. "I have every reason in the world to know of Naraku's power. Every single damned one of them, but you aren't really listening to me, are you Inuyasha? Look, I can understand how losing Kikyou may have hurt you, but that is no reason to be upset with me. I can guess, from how you're acting, that the next thing you'll be telling me is that I should stay away from what we both know will be the final battle. I'm telling you know, Inuyasha, I will not back down, and I will not be put away for safe keeping. I'm changing, Inuyasha."  
  
He snorts derisively, though I can see he is somewhat put off by my statement. In actuality, I believe I have just reminded him of all that will come. He was too focused on me to see beyond, but that is all I have in sight now.  
  
Aside from my friends, it's all I need.  
  
"Kagome, Naraku's a bastard, but he's not the sole reason why everyone died. It's not like-"  
  
"You're right, Inuyasha, it wasn't only his fault, or his copies' fault, or the fault of those he controls. No, Inuyasha, it's the Shikon's fault. Bet you'd agree with that, ni? Ah," I sigh, "But I would as well." I am pausing, thinking of how to next say what I know needs to be said. "Thus, it is my own fault as well."  
  
I swear, as of this moment, I've shocked Inuyasha this one night more than I have in the course of our entire journey. "What. Did. You. Say."  
  
Following his example, I suppose, I'll make my response all the clearer. "I. Am. To. Blame."  
  
Impending explosion: Those who wish to see tomorrow please escape now.  
  
What's the worst that can happen?  
  
I swear I have the most typical last thought-words.  
  
"Kagome. . . "  
  
Like I just thought; nothing much. Just another reference to the paradox that is my name. "I am called that, yes."  
  
"Don't you fucking do this."  
  
Ah. The foul language. What a potty mouth, and the calm of his voice. . . If I were a thrill seeker, I would be having adrenaline highs right now. Although I do anyway. Damn it all.  
  
"I will not listen to one more word of your bullshit. Not one more word." Okay, now if it isn't unpleasant enough as is, he now has to shake me in true masculine style as if I need my brains rearranged before anything can penetrate. "Do you understand me?"  
  
Yes, sir, aye-aye, sir, that I do, sir. Sure, it sounds good in my mind, but he'll just react on tone and emotion. So I'll be blunt. "Go fuck yourself, Inuyasha."  
  
. . . Did I really just say that? I have a very bad feeling that didn't go over too well. . .  
  
Nope, not well at all. How he manages to move me so fast I might never know (Then again, I might), but within the second these thoughts pass through my mind I'm pinned to a tree.  
  
Let me say this right now-Trees are not comfortable when their bark is digging into your skin. Especially not when the person holding you against the tree was slightly taller, and more or less stronger.  
  
In fact, it sucks.  
  
"Watch your mouth, girl," he's growling low in his throat.  
  
"What?" I spit back in his face, "Just like you do, hanyou brethren?"  
  
Ah, large stiffening on his part, he must be reaching a conclusion I have found not long before. "What did you say."  
  
No question, only statement. "I know your ears work fine, Inuyasha, you heard me."  
  
His face is in my own now, his breath hot on my over-sensitive skin as he exhales and speaks. "Kagome, what do you mean brethren."  
  
I really shouldn't, but I. . . Am not really feeling like I should resist. "Like I said, Inuyasha, I've been changing. You just didn't know how much of a change it was."  
  
Extra emphasis on the grinding my back into the tree bark. How nice of him. "You lie."  
  
I won't respond, I refuse. Then again, I'm just not in the silent mood. "Call me whatever you like, Inuyasha, but never, never call me a liar." With the last word, I manage to position my hands on his chest and push him away from me. For a moment, the briefest of moments, my inexplicably bruised shoulder resists, and still I can shut away the pain. "Never," I have decided to add, knowing Inuyasha, with his selective hearing, might not have registered that key word.  
  
As I said before, this night was meant to shock. His amber depths are disbelieving, in turmoil. Good. I have him right where I need him. "We leave tomorrow at dawn. There's a village within a mile of here," I have finally been able to assign the annoying scent a name, though still I can very well be mistaken, "With a large fluctuation of power within its confines." On this, I was guessing-I had definitely felt something as I was coming to by the fire, though at the time I thought I was tired, and looking back I know that couldn't be the explanation. Looking back, I see many small pieces fall into place. Looking forward. . . I don't know what I'm seeing, but I suspect half of it is wishful thinking.  
  
"How."  
  
A simple word, one I used not a day before (for me, at least) to learn of Kikyou's demise. How odd, now, that he can turn that same question upon me. "How? How what? How did I know, how did I change, how did you not realize? There are too many how's Inuyasha-Pick one."  
  
"How did you know."  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Then why the hell did you say anything?"  
  
"I should make myself a bit clearer. I don't know for sure. In fact, I didn't even guess, but now," I pause for a moment, reorganizing my thoughts, "I didn't know, not until tonight, not until I realized. . . The details. Every little detail that I'd just passed off as normal fell in place, once I thought about it. How did I know when you were coming to me at the stream-side that you had battled Naraku? Or one of his? Aside from the obvious, it was the smell. The smell of miasma. I never really cared before, never really took note-I left that to you-But that night. . . Aside from the rustling in the bushes it was the first thing that registered. And with my family. . . I don't care how much fear can increase your awareness, I smelt every last drop of that blood, and even if I had subconsciously buried the truth I knew no one was left alive. Even when I threw the knife-"  
  
"What knife?" So he picks out the mundane detail and questions it. I sigh.  
  
"The one I threw at the zombie youkai. I think I hit his arm, but I wasn't sure."  
  
"How did you know it was already dead?" A quick question, meant to make me reveal something I might not normally. Ha, ha, Inuyasha, the jokes on you. I'm not holding back right now, not on this. Not after what's happened.  
  
"The smell, it was of decaying flesh. I remember it from somewhere. . . " I search my memory, quickly. "Two weeks ago, at the village. The dead that had been in the streets for a day or two, I remember a much less obvious stench from them."  
  
"Kagome, no human would have been able to smell that if they tried."  
  
"I doubt that, Inuyasha, it's just a matter of how bad you want something. I wanted nothing more than to not know what my nose was telling me. It was almost like I couldn't get used to it. . . " I trail off, sensing that something about Inuyasha's demeanor has changed. I meet his eyes with what I know are my own, human ones, but even now I can sense the small changes going on. Oddly enough, considering scientists believed dogs to have relatively bad vision compared to what humans possessed, I can clearly see detail, though the dark setting brings all color closer to blues and blacks.  
  
And the eyes, the liquid amber eyes. . .  
  
Damn, attention's wandering and he's beginning to speak.  
  
"I believe you."  
  
My turn for shock. I just cannot, will not accept that he has so quickly believed my word. So, I blithely continue. "Even my reaction time's gone up, I've noticed. Not that it helped much back there," I cannot bring myself to name my home, "Though in other ways, it has."  
  
He steps forward, one quick, fluid motion. "I said I believe you."  
  
"And sometimes, I hear things before even you react, though that might just be a resurgence of my miko powers-"  
  
Inuyasha pulls me into his embrace. I am too stunned even to blink. "Kagome, I said I believed you."  
  
Speechless. Utterly speechless. I am, anyway. "B-but why?"  
  
"Thing's I'd noticed, things I'd given little though to. They add up with what you've been saying, Kagome. I'd seen you react more than the others during the burials. I'd just thought you were feeling sick."  
  
I snort in derision. "Squeamish, after all this time? Who the hell do you think you're kidding?"  
  
I feel his chest rumble-For a moment I think he's growling. No, it is only laughter. "Me, Kagome. I'm fooling me."  
  
And for a moment, all is perfect in the world.  
  
~~~(*~~~  
  
:: rejoices :: FINALLY! I TAKE a year and a HALF sometimes, I swear. -__- Well, I'm up to eleven reviews! Someone, break out the sparkling apple cider! Free cider for everyone! :-D  
  
Okay, so there are a few issues that could definitely be cleared up, many to do with Naraku, but for those who think I'm rambling into space, be warned: There is a plot. Escape while you still can! Bwahahaha!!!  
  
Right. Anyway, my thanks to you all for your reviews! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. . . Which reminds me, I have a few warm and fuzzy feelings to hand out to other writers! -__- Been a long time since I was on FanFiction.Net, I can tell you that. No worries, Cold Fire Phoenix is here!  
  
. . . Hey. . . Where's everyone going?  
  
As for any tense mistakes. . . I'm tired. Just be glad I didn't write this all in the future, then we'd really be in trouble. :-D  
  
Later! Me. . . 


	7. In My Lover's Arms

_**Forgiven's Not Forgotten – In My Lover's Arms**_

Perhaps, in the end, I am never to know a moment's peace. The last one I can remember happening occurred when I was around the tender age of fourteen years and three hundred and sixty four days.

Been quite a while, no?

Never mind that – Bemoaning my past isn't realistic. Or is it? I don't know, in fact I don't want to know. My goals are not focused on then, the then of. . . My family.

Damn. I can't. . . Think of them right now.

I need hold of what sanity I have left. Then again, was I ever really sane?

There is one question that bears no asking, and most certainly no answering.

"Inuyasha?" His arms tighten around my shoulders, which is actually not what I need right now. I want a semblance of normality, not. . . This somewhat sudden change in heart. Of heart. Or something.

"Hn?"

"Could you please blush or something? This is a bit unnerving."

Ah. That did the trick. He releases me, falling backward with his silvered bangs falling over his face and eyes. I see he has taken my suggestion to heart quite readily, though my mind isn't resting on this fact for long.

"Inuyasha?" I call out again, receiving a grunt in reply. "What if it's the Shikon no Tama?"

He speaks, if gruffly. "What the hell are you talking about, bitch?"

My eyes narrow, but I let the comment pass. This, now, _this_ was more normal to me.

"Nothing. . . " Even as I say this, I know that I am lying. My hand, as if under the control of another, travels to the few shards I hold in my personal possession at the moment. Three there are. They say that all good things come in threes.

They say the same for the bad.

I suppose if I were to go back through the ages I would find that for everything there is a number. Even for the Shikon no Kakera that rested in the hands of friends, enemies, and family across the countryside. I wonder what it might be, what it might. . . Mean. As the most powerful purification force in the past at the moment, I-

_Wait. Backtrack a moment. Purification. _ That is what I do. Yet how does this work? I haven't really thought about this before – Everything was too alien and too far-fetched for much sense to be made concerning the logical reasoning (if there was any) behind my 'mystical' powers. If I purify, then. . .

_Water. How do you purify water?_ This is an easy question with an easy answer. To purify water, you run it through a filter, which collected all the impurities letting the water flow through renewed. _My gods. . . A filter._ Eventually, filters needed to be replaced, as they become too sullied to continue on as they had before. "I'm a. . . Filter. Chikuso. . . " I murmur under my breath, unaware I do so. Now all the little things that had cumulated to my understanding of my change form a part in a larger puzzle.

It seems that fate has played quite the little trick on us.

Kikyou and Inuyasha really _were_ doomed from the start.

…The thought makes me inexplicably sad.

So introverted I am at the time that it isn't until Inuyasha's hand is tugging at the collar of my shirt that I realize he has come forward again. Irritated for no reason, perhaps the interruption of my own thought processes, I absently slap his hand away.

He ostensibly puts it back.

Silence. "What. . . Exactly. . . Do you think you're doing?" I could think of several things, but name-calling was not my own calling. . . And if therein lies a pun it is not intended.

"Something that I should have done a whole lot sooner."

Ever get that feeling when you're slipping into an ice-cold bath after a long journey, and you don't know wether to shiver in cold or joy? Truth be told, I only have because of my journeying here in the past, but standing here is giving me much the same feeling. "W-What?"

He doesn't bother to voice a reply, though I give him credit for grunting. I do not, however, give him any credit for being able to have me pinned to the ground in under an eye-blink when I attempt to make good my attempt at escaping. The shivers have gotten a bit too much for me to handle.

They have apparently merely gotten on Inuyasha's nerves, frayed as they already were.

Frayed as my clothing now was.

I'll never be wearing this fuku again, even if I want to. Not that I do, no, not that at all.

Sometimes it's easiest to lie to oneself.

At other's you don't even want to pretend. "Get off of me, you clumsy oaf!"

"At least your language has improved," he manages to say, none too tenderly handling the shoulder Sango, with all her good intentions, had mentioned to be mysteriously bruised. I really must get around to telling her some day that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. . . Though she does, perhaps, know as much about one of the seven hells as I do.

"Like hell it has," I manage to state, moving around as much as I can, as violently as I can.

Big mistake on my part, as my movements tweak my shoulder and sorrily enough cause me to screech out in pain.

Saying Inuyasha is none too impressed by the half muffled exclaimation of pain I am producing – I shouldn't expect him to be – Is an understatement. After all, if I am in that much pain, I am hurt in his eyes. How to explain I'm just not much for, oh, let's see. . . A glutton for punishment?

"Stay still already," he growls, and I growl in return. And then scream.

Blackness.

I can see it everywhere.

Not black enough to be night… No, there is light that dances in patterns across my eyes.

Then what?

Waking?

Yes, it is that, though not a pleasant waking. My head pounds, feeling as if someone had dragged burning nails through my flesh. My chest, breasts, and belly burn as nothing else, and my mouth… I open and gasp for breath with the aching cavity of my mouth.

Murmurs, yes – I hear murmurs. Who? I know… Sango. No, wait, Miroku. No, Sango. No, that's Inuyasha. And wait – Shippou? I groan, my eyes opening.

"She's awake," Miroku states, eyes bleeding kindness. And some strange pity.

"Kagome-chan," Sango says, kneeling by my head and taking my hand in her own. "How are you feeling?"

I try to speak, but my words slur, my mouth is dry. "Hurt," I manage, cringing as my stomach sends fire-hot pains up through my body.

I can't see Inuyasha. I smell him, I heard him, but I can't see him.

As if sensing this, he moves into my line of vision. He doesn't speak. He looks… Strange.

Miroku lays his beaded hand over my forehead, depressing the pain there. "Kagome," he says softly, "Do you know what's going on?"

I want to say no, that I have no idea, that all I feel and think of is the pain, but then I know that is not the truth. I can still remember what I said before, or thought, before I blacked out, passed out, whatever it was. "Fil…ter…"

Miroku nods, and Sango speaks. "Filter? Filter what?"

"I," I begin, trying, striving to finish. "I… Filter…"

"That explains the antanae," Miroku states, sighing. Inuyasha glares down at him.

"What does?"

Miroku motions to me, and I await the answer as much as any other in camp. Kirara wanders over, sticking to Sango's side. "Kagome… Has been changing. We all know this." I know I do. "But I couldn't figure out why. I believed that Kagome… Having undergone these… Changes… Would know, or at least guess at, the why. The how."

His forehead furrows. "Kagome says 'filter'. We know she purifies the jewel… And I believe she is saying that she acts as a filter… For the evil in the jewel."

A pause.

And I understand.


	8. Bend In The River

_**Forgiven's Not Forgotten – Bend In The River**_

"I want to be alone." My voice is grating and raspy. My teeth ache, pressing against the soft flesh of my inner lips. I can feel my elongated canines. I feel so much, pain, sensation, everything is overwhelming. I must be alone.

"Kagome-chan…" Shippou's concern washes over me as a wave of salt, pouring into my open, if invisible, wounds.

"Alone," I repeat, wishing they could understand and glad none of them could. "Please! Just… Alone."

Miroku pauses, the concern radiating from his body, the purity of what he stood for (if not his actions) a cool brush of air against the burning that my body has become. He looks about to speak before Sango shakes her head and they turn to leave, a firm hand on Shippou. I sense Inuyasha near me, and I won't meet his gaze.

His repulsed gaze.

The smallest movement of air over leaves above sends jarring pains into my skull. Inuyasha steps toward me, and in defensive reflex my hands fly up, covering my ears. My sensitive, furry, slightly misplaced ears.

He is fighting for words but his body says everything. He can be dishonest in words, but Inuyasha never lies with his body. "I know you," he says. I read him as a book. "I am scared of you."

Not scared enough.

"Didn't you hear me?"

"Kagome, I-"

"If it's enough, already, Inuyasha, then go." Frustration builds in the hollow of my chest, a rough energy with no release or tangibility. "Get it through your thick skull, Inuyasha. I want to be-"

He's gone. So much for stubborn. And to think I once believed Inuyasha could never back down from a good fight.

Why do I feel let down?

The pains aren't as shooting now. I am burning up, too warm under the blankets that had been lain over me in care. Too weak to stand, to restless to lay back. I sit up, closing my eyes and being shocked as a red afterglow dances across my inner lids. Movement. Heat. I look – it's the fire.

Ah. So I'm heat sensitive now.

The first sensation other than pain lurks at the back of my mind. I itch on my finger tips, underneath the nail beds. I scratch without thinking, then I bring my hands close to my face to examine them.

I've seen these hands before. On Inuyasha – on any youkai found in human form. A milky-steel claw, sharp to the touch, pushing my old calcium nails right out. Oh, how they itch!

I force myself to stop, tearing my eyes from my nails to notice the thicker pads on my palms, the strange patterns on the inside of my arm. I run one fingertip across my skin, seeing it become clear. Scales. Snake scales, soft, small and fine, on the inside of my arms. How far? I peer down my shirt and swallow. Larger here, but down my front. Still skin-toned, but I know in the core of my being this will change the longer I stay.

How in hell could I go home now? Even if there was a home, even if…

The if's are not worth considering. I pool my energy, forcing myself to my feet and finding what once passed as clothing sliding right off my shoulders and puddling around my still-human toes. How curious. In the light of this fire I seem to glow with an iridescent sheen. A translucent rainbow of monstrosity.

The new me.

I'm forgetting something. The result, this change, this unwanted shift… The shards! Where are they? My eyes fly to what I think is my backpack when I register an unfamiliar pressure around my neck. I grab it, finding a leather thong, and a pouch. The cool energy, a sweet, alluring call, caresses my palm. The relief of the shards smooths over my discovery of a ruff of fur around my neck. I don't want to explore to where it extends.

The hunger returns. I glance skyward, noticing in subdued shock the moon is different than I recall. How long have I been lost in the dark? The moon shines above me so small now, a sliver of a promise.

A promise of blood.

Naraku's.

Maybe I should worry about this hatred, but it fuels me. My hand tightens around the pouch with the three lonely shards, calling for their help. "Find them," I wish, hoping, "Find them for me."

Nothing.

Minutes of intense concentration, and nothing.

My eyes slam shut, and I start focusing on only the shards. Their voices, calls of power and purity and lust. Remnants of past evils and goods and intentions.

A faint reply, to the south. A wicked grin splits my face.

Bingo.

Motion to my left breaks my concentration. The signal is lost, and the frustration returns as I whirl around, facing… Nothing.

I feel dawn coming on as I search around me for the perpetrator of movement. No one.

Except…

"Do you understand the meaning of alone?" My eyes, simple blue, part the limbs of the trees as I crane my head backward, finding the faintest hint of the familiar form I have fallen in love with despite everything I know. Inuyasha, again.

Forever not mine.

He refuses to move, as if staying still will make me wrong.

I wonder…

With a crash, I land hard on my thigh. My attempt to leap has not met with success this time. Unless success comes in a red robe with white ears. Almost before I knew I was falling, I felt him there.

I feel him here now, kneeling next to me. Staring at me in what would have been lewd just days before. Now me, nude, is scary. Is inhuman.

Is unbearable.

"Don't look at me," I plead. The fire, the rage for Naraku has burned low, leaving me cold and hollow, lost and hoping. "Please, god, don't look at me!"

He frowns and doesn't listen. His eyes, those amber orbs, stare at me, all of me, without holding back. "Where does it hurt, Kagome?" His voice is steady, unexpected from my vibrant hanyou.

I feel myself slipping, feel the tears welling up in my eyes – only to realize there is no water. Then his hand brushes my shoulder, and the pain I have been denying takes hold, tearing at my heart. I burst into sobs, dry, pained, wracking sobs, struggling to sit up, to get up and away. To run away.

Inuyasha won't let me. He is faster and stronger and familiar as he does the first mature thing I recall in a long while. Forcing me to stay seated, he holds me, and tells me to let it go.

Maybe a month.

Time to start letting go.

I have no idea how long I cry, this strange, wordless, tearless fit where the pain is so emotional it tears my heart, leaving me feeling as if I should be dying, dying as so many in this time, as so many were right now across the world. And in this same instant, I want to live more strongly than ever before.

"I know where he is, Inuyasha." My voice is steady, small. "I want to kill him. I _will_ kill him."

He isn't replying. I feel sick to my stomach, starting to shake with a mixture of the grief, shock, and rage. He isn't replying.

And then, the darkness. Not again. Dear lord, not...


End file.
